Rare Early Beatles Reel-to-Reel Tape Sold for $23,000

The tape of the Beatles recording several songs was sold to an unknown buyer yesterday for reported $23,000 at Cameo Auctioneers in Great Britain. The 30-minute tape, believed to have been recorded in 1964 and discovered in an attic in northern England, features a studio version of the band trying (with varying degrees of success) to play "I'll Follow The Sun" with plenty of joking mixed in. "There are a lot of false start where the band can't get it together," said an auction house director.

While recording "I'll Follow the Sun" — released on the Beatles For Sale LP — John Lennon and Paul McCartney repeatedly collapse in laughter as they try finish the track. Lennon is heard saying to McCartney: "I'm not looking at you." McCartney replies, "You were!" Lennon then says: "It's just going to get funnier and funnier as the evening goes on."

"I'll Follow The Sun" comes at the end of the first side of the tape after "Don't Put Me Down Like This," "I Feel Fine," "She's A Woman," "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" and "Honey Don't." The other tracks include "I'm A Loser," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Nitty Gritty," "Something's Gotta Hold Of Me" and "I Shall Not Be Moved."

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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